Rockwall, Texas – D.R. Horton, a homebuilding giant, and Rockwall County are fighting over the price of infrastructure. This shows how the relationship between corporate development and public accountability is getting worse in one of Texas’ fastest-growing areas.
According to Dallas Business Journal, River Rock Trails is a proposed development of 418 homes that is at the center of the legal fight. The community would take up 85 acres in an unincorporated area of southern Rockwall County. This is part of a much bigger 1,867-acre land purchase by D.R. Horton from DMDS Land Co. The builder filed preliminary plats for the area in March 2023, but the county put a stop to things when it asked the corporation to help pay for a longer list of infrastructure improvements.
In early 2024, Rockwall County changed its rules for subdivisions. Now, developers have to pay for 16 different infrastructure things, like as roads, water, broadband, emergency services, and law enforcement. These new laws apply to developments outside of municipal limits, which are places where growth-related problems have become a big problem in Texas.
In December 2024, Rockwall County personnel gave D.R. Horton an estimate that included $338,867 for road upgrades along FM 548. Horton pushed back and said he didn’t want to be accountable for all 16 categories. Instead, the corporation came up with a middle ground: it would pay for the road work and give $529,424 to pay for two new sheriff’s deputy posts.
The county turned down the offer at first, therefore D.R. Horton pulled its proposal. But a few weeks later, it looked like Rockwall authorities had changed their minds and agreed to the original stipulations. The builder had already pulled out by then, which led to a lawsuit being filed on June 12.
D.R. Horton and DMDS Land said in court documents that Rockwall County’s requests violate their property rights and that the payments aren’t “roughly proportionate” to the effect of the construction. They are seeking damages and attorney fees but have not commented publicly on the case.
Rockwall County Judge Frank New defended the county’s position by saying that while the area wants to grow, it shouldn’t cost current taxpayers anything.
“My goal for developments, especially developments of this scale, is to make sure they build safely and not impose a de facto tax on existing citizens of Rockwall County to pay for the infrastructure that should rightfully be a cost that the developer bears,” New said.
The dispute brings up a problem that the whole state is facing: who pays for infrastructure in places just outside of cities? Cities usually make developers pay for these expenditures, but things are different in unincorporated areas. Senate Bill 2038 and other recent state laws have made it possible for landowners to abandon municipal extraterritorial jurisdictions. This has made it tougher for counties to plan growth and services.
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Rockwall County’s population is expected to rise by 25% between 2020 and 2024. This case could set a standard for how counties deal with comparable growth concerns in the future.
